Plans to upgrade the Dublin-Galway Road will most likely result in a new toll motorway being built between Kilcock, Co Kildare, and Galway city, it has emerged.
The National Roads Authority (NRA), which met the Mullingar Chamber of Commerce this week to hear the town's case for the redrawing of a section of the route, has engaged consultants to consider "preferred options" for other sections of the N6.
The sections, taken together, effectively comprise a complete redrafting of the N6 outside Co Dublin, and since the route was identified in the National Development Plan as a key strategic corridor last December the NRA has moved swiftly to make progress with its plans.
Mr Michael Egan, NRA head of corporate affairs, confirmed yesterday that the preferred option for the entire route was a new highway - either high-grade dual carriageway or motorway, by passing all towns en route, constructed in parts by private enterprise and paid for by tolls.
He said a preferred option was "currently emerging" for the section between Kilcock and Kinnegad, which is to be a separate route to the existing road, while consultants have indicated six possible options for the section between Kinnegad and Athlone.
Consultants have also been appointed for the section between Athlone and Galway city, and one possibility being considered is to construct the new road roughly in line with the older main Galway road through Kilconnell and Athenry. The N6 currently detours to Loughrea, south of Athenry.
After the meeting between the NRA and Mullingar Chamber of Commerce, Mr Paul O'Reilly, of the chamber, said substantial cost savings could be achieved by linking the N6 and the N4 along one road - the existing N4 - from Kinnegad to Mullingar. Currently the N6 and the N4 is the same road from Dublin to Kinnegad.
In sharing this stretch of road between the N4 and the N6, the total cost of the new Kilcock-Galway route, which he estimated at £200 million, would then be reduced by as much as £15 million, he maintained.
He said routing the N6 close to Mullingar would allow the opening up of the lakelands to increased tourism, while the connecting route between Mullingar and Athlone could be simply laid parallel to the existing railway line, via Moate.
As Mullingar was the "first substantial town" outside of Dublin heading to the west and the north-west, it made sense to have the road go close to Mullingar. He also claimed that routing the N6 through Tullamore would be "costly because the land is so boggy".
In Ballinasloe, a spokesman for the chamber of commerce, Mr Colm Croffy, said a consultant's report on the realignment of the N6 between Ballinasloe and Galway city would be presented to Galway County Council by Easter.
Mr Croffy said the chamber had been seeking a bypass for Ballinasloe for the last 12 years and would favour the French system, where new national routes were for inter-urban travel, leaving the smaller and older routes for local traffic. The creation of a new road would, he said, lead to better access east and west of Ballinasloe.
